“If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.”
E. Payne, trans., vol. 2, p. 230
The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)
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Arthur Schopenhauer 261
German philosopher 1788–1860Related quotes
"Purely Personal Prejudices" http://books.google.com/books?id=DLcEAQAAIAAJ&q=%22A+person+who+is+going+to+commit+an+inhuman+act+invariably+excuses+himself++to+himself+by+saying+I'm+only+human+after+all%22&pg=PA232#v=onepage
Strictly Personal (1953)
“Excuse our appearances. We are taking apart yesterday, to make way for tomorrow”
Source: Perfect Fifths
“Anonymity is no excuse for stupidity.”
c. 1948, p. 54
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
“We have no time for excuses.”
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 80
“Yea, Custance, better (they say) a bad excuse than none.”
Gawin Goodluck, Act V, sc. ii.
Ralph Roister Doister (c. 1553)
The Contemporary Review
Context: If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force. Force is the very weakest and most treacherous of all human implements. The history of force is the history of the continuous crumbling away of every institution that has rested upon it. — The Contemporary Review, The Ethics of Dynamite (1894)
